Indian edtech industry surfs AI wave as upskilling gathers pace

Indian edtech industry is witnessing a boom in the demand for artificial intelligence (AI) courses, following international trends. With AI at the heart of upskilling, an increasing number of learners — from experienced professionals to school-goers — are looking to learn and experiment with technology.

BrightCHAMPS, an edtech company that provides learning courses to students in the K-12 space, discovered that 58 per cent of students worldwide are already incorporating AI into their curriculum. Compared with 36 per cent of them applying the technology for homework.

Ravi Bhushan, BrightCHAMPS founder and chief executive officer (CEO) said that AI is one of the most sought-after courses in the market. We only introduced a Gen AI course for children. In the US, one out of every four students is taking AI course. India is not too far behind in comparison to the US. Indian parents are more inquisitive than US parents," he said.

Gen AI is one of the seven featured courses the firm has and even though it has been launched only eight-months ago, now it ranks amongst the top three best-selling courses.

Edtech unicorn Emeritus has launched more than 20 machine learning and AI courses. Three of the top five online certificates at Emeritus are AI courses. India is at the forefront of AI adoption, as per the 2025 Global Workplace Skills Study, with 96 per cent of the professionals indicating that they wish to be AI-ready and upskill themselves.

Krishna Kumar, founder and CEO of Simplilearn, reveals that 30-40 percent of the company's revenue is generated from its AI products worldwide. Kumar also points out that not only are engineers enrolling in these courses, but managers and leaders are reskilling themselves as well.

He further stated that if he had to list the top five courses on Simplilearn, it would be all AI only.

Imarticus Learning, another edtech firm offering professional courses, said up to 20 per cent of the company's offerings are in emerging technologies, including AI. One particular Gen AI course, directed to executives and learners, which is about the application of AI, is among the top five courses at the company, said Nikhil Barshikar, founder and managing director of the platform.

Whereas AI training courses are being grabbed by aspirants, edtech websites are also employing AI to ensure their material gets delivered to a mass of aspirants. PhysicsWallah (PW) is leveraging AI to overcome the language divide for students. With its Project Bharat, the course material will be written in local languages, dubbed over, and then upgraded with AI. The company says that the strategy will simulate the experience of in-class lectures by the faculty.

PW also unveiled AI-powered tools like Prep Meter and PW Books to support student learning. Whereas Prep Meter is a sophisticated performance tracking tool that offers personalized video suggestions for improvement, PW Books is an intelligent digital NCERT book that comes as a separate app on the Play Store